Asterisk\IP PBX Advice

Just looking around at the various options to create a software based pbx as part of a project
im looking at at the moment. I have a lot of experience with software development but nothing
in this area and just wondered if anyone had advice as to what software (asterisk or other) would be best to use
and any simple tutorials to get me started Ideally id like to use the open source solutions
to keep costs down.

i am trying to create a system which handles incoming telephone calls only.

Each call will be logged in a database with basic information such as call duration and time
and different messages played dependant on who is calling.

I also need to record what callers are pressing on the phone and
replay different messages dependant on their input.

Initially looking at creating a system that can handle a small number of incoming calls for testing
but hopefully all going well this will need to scale upwards quickly.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Dale

Asterisk is perfect for these jobs.
If you want - look for “Asterisk The Future of Telephony”.

thanks bira_more ill take a look at it.